When the ancient Polynesians invented surfing, they often used a paddle to help them navigate. Fast-forward a few millennia, and Stand-Up Paddleboarding, or SUP, finds itself trendy again. Part of its increasing popularity is that standing upright allows surfers to spot waves more easily and thus catch more of them, multiplying the fun factor. Paddling back to the wave becomes less of a strain as well. The ability to cruise along on flat inland water, surveying the sights, is another advantage. Finally, its a good core workout. If youre sold on the idea, schedule an intro SUP lesson, free with board and paddle rental, and you may find yourself riding the waves like a Polynesian king.More

In the past 30 years, light artists have reimagined an art form that has always had the ability to turn the night sky, or a simple window, into luminescence. Last fall, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts turned its southern glass wall into a parade of sound-sensing lights, Lightswarm, that changes with the movements of nearby people and things. Future Cities Lab, the San Francisco design company behind Lightswarm, has originated another notable light sculpture. Located by the YBCA's steps at 701 Mission, Murmur Wall will light up in arresting ways as it incorporates local trending search engine results and social media postings. Onlookers can offer their own contributions, which will feed into the Murmur Wall's data stream and light up the sculpture. What's trending in San Francisco? If you're walking by the YBCA, you can see firsthand — at least through light patterns that reflect the city's volatile internet habits.
Murmur Wall debuts Thursday at 6 p.m. and continues through May 31, 2017, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St., S.F. Free; 415-978-2700 or ybca.org. More

Mashing up different world cuisines is usually a popular conceit for new quick-service eateries and food trucks to make a quick buck and gain Instagram fame, but Volta has shown how well global cross-pollination works on a refined plate without stretching for novelty or pretense in the process.

Feds Try to Handcuff Bay Area Dispensaries

Shaw operates Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, which has sold state-authorized marijuana out of a tiny Fairfax storefront since 1996 and is likely the state's oldest medical cannabis dispensary. Shaw also runs the only dispensary to survive federal prosecution: all of the other six defendants in 1998's U.S. v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative et al., including San Francisco pot icon Dennis Peron's Cannabis Healing Center, are gone.

That's one reason Shaw thinks that she now finds herself in the unique position of fending off two federal agencies attempting to do what Bill Clinton's Department of Justice could not. Already locked in a battle with the Internal Revenue Service, which told her in March she cannot claim the cost of marijuana on her federal tax return, Shaw was one of four Bay Area dispensaries to receive letters from U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, whom Barack Obama appointed as the Bay Area's top federal prosecutor in 2010. The letters set a deadline of Nov. 21 for the dispensaries to shut down, or risk asset forfeiture proceedings against their landlords and up to 40 years in prison for the operators.

The letters are part of a significant backtracking from Obama's campaign-trail promise that state-law-abiding medical marijuana was not a federal law enforcement priority.

In a statement e-mailed to the press this week, Haag's office says it is "focusing its limited resources on significant drug traffickers. Individuals involved in the commercial cultivation and distribution of marijuana remain a core priority.” No other comment was offered.
“I can't believe Obama did this to me, and my patients,” says Shaw, who says she suffers from “non-military PTSD” and uses marijuana in order to be able to function. “I don't want to be sick again, my patients don't want to be sick -- it's just so mean and so wrong -- it's a terrible lie, and I can't believe Obama is behind it,” she says, sobbing into the telephone during a recent interview.

The government's strategy appears to be working: Two of the three San Francisco dispensaries that received letters announced last week plans to shut down, and a proposed dispensary for the city's Marina District said it had put its application on hold. Though the government seizing a state-law-abiding landlord's property might be unpopular — "It would be a public relations nightmare," says San Francisco attorney Kenneth Wine — the feds appear serious. A lawyer in Haag's office told Wine that the forfeiture proceedings are drafted, and that more letters to dispensaries are in the works.

Yet not everyone in the Bay Area is backing off. On Oct. 14, Oakland accepted 12 applications for four new dispensary permits.

Shaw hopes to use this opportunity to drag the nation's pot laws themselves into court. "In this country, you can't base a law on a lie," says Shaw, referring to the Drug Enforcement Administration's classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug. "That means it has no medical value, it's highly dangerous, cannot be prescribed safely, and is not recognized as medicine anywhere in the U.S.," she says. "Those four things are all lies — we just need a federal judge to rule on it."

Stephen DeAngelo, CEO of Oakland's Harborside Health Center, was told earlier this month that Harborside is $2.5 million in arrears to the IRS. He too plans to take the feds to court, to have a judge rule on the validity of the IRS' application of a section of tax code meant to punish cocaine traffickers. "I'm looking forward to my own kind of bully pulpit," he told SF Weekly. "We're going to present our case to the American people, to the courts, and to Congress. This will be a huge, huge decision."

It's a heartening stance, but until Congress changes marijuana's legal status, it's also a long shot, according to Wine. "The law is stacked in the federal government's favor," he says. "Federal law on marijuana is totally unforgiving."

Nobody seems to know why Obama's lawyers are targeting taxpayers rather than street dealers — to whom the state's marijuana users will turn for their pot if the storefronts close. "The federal government says they're protecting the children, and that may be true," Wine says. "But in the meantime, they're denying a lot of sick people their medicine."

About The Author

Bio:
Chris Roberts has spent most of his adult life working in San Francisco news media, which is to say he's still a teenager in Middle American years. He has covered marijuana, drug policy, and politics for SF Weekly since 2009.

Slideshows

Sub Pop recording artists 'clipping.' brought their brand of noise-driven experimental hip hop to the closing night of 2016's San Francisco Electronic Music Fest this past Sunday. The packed Brava Theater hosted an initially seated crowd that ended the night jumping and dancing against the front of the stage. The trio performed a set focused on their recently released Sci-Fi Horror concept album, 'Splendor & Misery', then delved into their dancier and more aggressive back catalogue, and recent single 'Wriggle'.
Opening performances included local experimental electronic duo 'Tujurikkuja' and computer music artist 'Madalyn Merkey.'"